Accept Defeat
by Jilly-chan
Summary: AU. When an experiment in Sally Po's lab goes kind of crazy, their failure becomes the answer to many different questions. Nichol. Duo Maxwell. Walker. Lady Une. Lucrezia Noin. Humor. mild yuri/yaoi content.


_Experiments rarely tell us what we think they're going to tell us. That's the dirty secret of science._

***

Sally Po had lost several research assistants over the years. First, the guy who had been standing too near the Bunsen burner when it exploded. The eruption of fire on the back of his lab coat had been spectacular and critical. Then the petite girl who inhaled from the Do-Not-Open-Ever box. That was her own fault. Standing over the grave, Sally had shaken her head whispering, "_Pandora_."

The newest assistant was little more than a tech. He had a few good ideas, but had a hard time picking up the lingo. She would stare at him while he muttered through a variety of terms until he said simple things like, "U-shaped glass container is full of red bubbles."

"Thank you, Nichol," she would reply and take care of the _(Fe3+) + (SCN-)_ reacting with _Fe(NO3)3_. At least, that's what she thought he was talking about. Everything needed her attention eventually, the assistant was supposed to put them in proper order for her.

"You're welcome," he replied, smiling brightly. She wasn't certain where HR pulled him from, but she secretly hoped it wasn't a prison reform program. He had a slightly creepy edge to him, but Sally didn't judge prematurely. Or if she did, she was perfectly willing to be proven wrong.

While going to tend to the "red bubbles", Sally noticed a Bunsen flame that seemed turn to brightly, reaching out she meant to adjust the setting. At the same time, Nichol must have noticed the same thing because his hand was in the same place as hers. She glanced at him, a little unnerved that they were essentially holding hands. His dark eyes were as big as saucers themselves.

And it was at just that time the red bubbles decided to leap from their casing onto the window curtains, climb rapidly to the fluorescent lights and burst into sparks around them.

Sally inhaled. Then everything went black in the room as she and Nichol slumped to the floor unconscious.

***

She woke up in the plain white bedding of a hospital. A sheet had been politely run around the edges, but she could see sunlight along the ceiling tiles. She recalled the collision of hands, the shower of red sparks and determined that she'd _somehow_ survived another calamity. She wondered if Nichol had made it. While she didn't wish him harm, perhaps the incident would encourage him to try his luck in a different department. Some place where "red" and "bubbles" were the standard vocabulary. Perhaps the daycare center?

Sally noticed the IV drip and lifted her arm to itch her nose. It was plugged with needles and tubes. And she had way too much hair on her forearms.

She also wasn't wearing a key piece of jewelry that she expected to find on her finger.

Her nose still itched, but as she crossed her eyes to see the movement, she noticed something else. A particular piece of physical equipment that didn't belong on her womanly body. Sally pushed herself up into a seated position and clutched at her chest where her breasts were decidedly absent.

"No," she said, but the voice was all wrong. "No. No no no." But each syllable, while pitched differently, was still in a masculine register.

She heard a stirring, then the curtain pulled back. Sally twisted to see who was there. She needed to be dreaming. Or she needed serious help.

"Hey, pal. How are you doing? You know you can always come back and work with me if you're ready to give up that _career_ of yours." The young man chattered away with his mouth more open than closed, his arms stubbornly crossed and his eyes closed as if he didn't want to visually connect with the man in the bed.

_Man_, Sally panicked, then blurted aloud, "I'm not who you think I am!"

"Oh no?" The man tilted his head forward to study the floor and rubbed his head. He had a thick braid of chestnut brown hair which would have been unusual if Sally hadn't already maxed out the definition of that word already.

"I'm not," she repeated. "I'm Sally Po."

"Good grief," the man pouted. "I know you've got a crush on her and all, but you lay it on too thick this time."

"What?" Sally swallowed hard taking in the information. "What? That doesn't matter. I'm not Nichol... I'm not. I don't even know his first name."

That comment got the man's attention. He squinted at her. Then sniffed as if he could sort out the difference by smell. He grabbed her very manly left wrist before she could protest and lifted the hospital tag so she could see the text.

"Nichol_ is _your first name. Or Nikolas to be exact." The man frowned, his eyes conveying sincere concern. "You use it as your last name because the name your parents gave you was kind of sissy. Tell me what it is."

"I don't know," Sally said, taking her arm back. Then she read the tag, "Tracy," She paused. "That's not so bad."

"It is if you once dated a girl named Tracy. _Tracy_ Tracy," Duo leaned back. "What happened to you, Nikky?"

"I'm Sally Po," she said through gritted teeth. "If you care for your friend, perhaps you should check the room where my body is checked in. If you don't mind."

"Do you know who I am?" The man ignored her.

"Of course not!" She looked around for the call button. "I'm going to have the staff kick you out."

"Hey, I'm your power of attorney, HIPAA confirmed, DNR representative and you're going to kick _me_ out?" he said rather loudly, seeming quite perplexed. "Don't make me your first call contact if you're going to be like this."

"Are you always this thick?" Sally pressed the button. "I'm not Nichol. I don't know who you are. I'm Sally Po."

"No use," he said, as if resolved. He grasped the rail on the hospital bed and leaned over Sally to put his lips on hers.

"Fire!" Sally yelled shoving against the man. She heard footsteps in the hall and pushed harder keeping the lips away from hers.

"Fine! Fine!" He raised his hands in surrender. "You're... not Nicky. There's no way... just. Whoa."

Sally fumed. Red-hot heat filled her cheeks and her ears might have been on fire.

The man seemed puzzled. "I'd expect the full body blush, but there's no way Nikky wouldn't..."

But the nurses came in then and the stranger was taken away without resistance at Sally's request. The woman politely logged Sally's concern that she was in the wrong body. The pen tracing along the paper as if it were making marks to her chart.

***

Nichol hadn't discovered his new, feminine body until Duo Maxwell slipped into the room with a low whispered, "Nikky?"

"Yeah?" Nichol croaked, his voice squeaked worse than a boy going through puberty. He grabbed his throat and found something missing.

"Hang on, don't panic," Duo came over and put his hand on Nichol's shoulder. The gesture was slightly unnerving. Duo did not touch his friend ever since they'd had their conversation about boundaries and all that came with Nichol explaining that he didn't want to be _just friends_ anymore.

"What are you doing here?" Nichol winced at the sound of his voice. Even in his head, the tone was so wrong it made him anxious. "Water?" he asked.

Duo found a pitcher and poured a glass. "You left me on your medical paperwork. Which is okay, I'm fine with that. Nearly died when I heard you were in an accident though. Pretty scary..." Duo handed over the glass which Nichol took, but he kept a fixed gaze on Duo's face. His freckles seemed to stand out more than usual.

"Sorry to scare you." Nichol drank. Then a fuzzy thought formed and he realized he felt a strange weight on his body.

"Yeah, well, some situations seem to call for it." Duo took the glass back and sighed heavily. "Do you remember when you dumped that girl... what was her name?"

"Tracy?"

"Yeah," Duo sighed again. "Then you changed your name because you were ready to start a new life?"

"Probably the best decision I ever made," Nichol winced. Something had pulled his hair as he'd shifted the pillow along his back.

"Well, I think that we've got a few more things to work through," Duo said. "But I'm going to help you get through this, okay?"

"Through what?" Nichol's suspicious nature flared into life. He looked at his carefully manicured hands and watched as they flinched. _Wait, are those my hands?_ he thought.

"Well, you might need a bra," Duo pointed out with a shrill, brief laugh.

Nichol began to understand with a whispered syllable, "Oh..."

***

The meeting with HR and the insurance investigators had been painful and embarrassing. Medically, Nichol's body seemed recovered only with Sally inside. Likewise, Sally's body was in sound health except Nichol's spirit was in the pilot's seat. Such situations had no precedent. Indeed, a small squabble had ignited before the meeting started when Sally went to sit next to her ex-husband, a stay-at-home dad for their two adopted children. Wes Walker had been warned by Sally that she might look different, he hadn't expected her to be male. Then Duo Maxwell had brought up the question of if his lawyer should be defending Nichol's body or Nichol's brain which caused both Sally and Nichol's bodies to blush furiously.

"I'm so glad that's over," Nichol said, leaning forward and trying to resist the urge to itch the underwire of the bra where it cut into his skin. Sally had offered some of her own for her body to wear, but Nichol wasn't certain she'd been wearing the most comfortable style.

"Over?" Duo glanced at his friend, now with two blonde-ish braids that Duo had done up for him in the style Nichol said Sally wore. "This has only just gotten started."

"This might hurt my visitation rights," Sally put her face into her hands. Her body responded to her reactions without restraint. She could barely see through the tears in her eyes.

Wes Walker pat her shoulder with some awkward effort at comfort. "We'll work something out, Sal."

"But I'm not their mom like this. Not in this body."

Nichol glanced at Duo then back at the formerly married couple, "Would it help if I recorded something for the kids? You could tell me what to say." He watched his own face go through a series of completely unguarded emotions, from outrage to hope to mild objection.

"It's not a bad idea," Wes Walker considered.

"Put something together," Nichol replied. He looked at Duo, "I'm really hungry."

"I'm a vegan," Sally interjected, with brief alarm.

Closing his eyes, Nichol came to terms with the necessity. "Fine, just... take care of my body too while you're at it."

"Of course."

***

"I don't even know what to order." Nichol shifted his weight while scowling at the menu. Hips were awkward and he tried to keep his knees together. Sally had a horrible sense of humor or no common sense at all, because the clothing she'd brought him had completely consisted of skirts. After complaining that they weren't always going to be insurance meetings where appearance mattered, Sally agreed to pack some pants as well. He didn't have them yet.

Duo had offered to take him to some fancy, but very private establishment. The room they were led to only had a few tables all at a decent distance from each other and no one else was dining at that time.

"I'll order for you," Duo suggested. "I had some friends in college who went Vegan. They liked the meals here which is why I thought... well."

"Thanks," Nichol replied nervously and swallowed about half of his glass of water in one go. They hadn't exactly parted on good terms.

"We'll get you back to normal," Duo smiled. The expression wasn't over-the-top or sarcastic, so Nichol hardly knew what to think of it.

"Well don't go falling for this body while I'm in it," Nichol grumbled. "I'm not sure Sally would appreciate the attention. Or you should be flirting with her in my body. Which is just weird." He mumbled the last.

"I'm not flirting," Duo said as the waiter came back to their table.

_That's what's worrying me._ Nichol thought and finished the water in his glass while Duo placed orders for them both.

***

Sally had her cell phone with her, but she hesitated to answer the call. "Wes, could you?" she asked. He'd gone with her back into the lab where she'd examined the remains of the equipment from the incident that had caused her to switch bodies with her lab assistant.

"Hey, Lucrezia," Wes greeted the caller. "Yeah, Sally's with me." He paused, listening. "Only good things, I promise. And you'd better take good care of her too." He glanced at Sally who watched from the slightly taller body. It made Wes seem diminished somehow. She wasn't used to having the height advantage with most anyone. "Right, only one date so far. Got it. Well, she's a good catch. I can still say that."

He shrugged, pointing at the phone then at Sally. Sally shook her head waving her hands. "I can't," she croaked in Nichol's voice.

"And she wants to see you again soon," Wes floundered. "But she can't right now which is why I have her phone. Yeah. Something in the lab came up. Sort of a... quarantine."

Sally nodded happily then whispered, "End the call."

"Sally sends her love, bye." Wes hung up.

"Sends _love_?" Sally repeated. "It was only one date, Wes."

"Sorry."

She exhaled heavily, then remembered that the substance when brought to sparks had created a breathable substance in the air. Perhaps that combination once inhaled by both her and Nichol while having physical contact... _Impossible_, Sally thought wretchedly. Then she rubbed her jaw, feeling a prickly growth. Again, _Impossible_.

***

Duo knew he was going to have an awful bout of indigestion the way that his stomach was churning and the red sauce from his meal didn't taste as fantastic as it should otherwise. He watched Nichol try to navigate the fork which wanted to go into different hands with varying degrees of success. His napkin was well-used from misjudging the size of his mouth.

The body wasn't Nichol, but Duo could still see the insecurity in the shimmering of those eyes. That wasn't doing much for his gut either. Sally Po was pretty, in an every woman way even without make-up, which Nichol refused. Of course, it would be grossly improper to ido/i anything with Sally's body or with Nichol's mind, but Duo swallowed each thought into his already upset innards.

"I need to pee," Nichol whispered in a most unladylike fashion.

"Just remember it's the door with the skirt," Duo whispered back. Humor had always helped their relationship in the past. _Just keep it light and friendly, Maxwell_, he thought. _Don't stress him out._

"I hate this part," Nichol stood up and seemed to need to touch every article of clothing he was wearing to make sure it was still there.

"Just don't look," Duo whispered.

Nichol's scowl on Sally's face was priceless. Duo wished he'd had his camera out.

While Nichol was gone, Duo leaned back into his chair and tilted his head up to look at the ceiling where an elegant, small chandelier hung over each table with mood lighting. Sally was pretty. He recalled how the clothes had shifted over her very feminine figure. Duo swallowed hard, _Not polite. Not right. Maybe I can ask her out when they switch back. Stop it, Maxwell._

He heard footsteps and sat upright again. Looking over, what he saw wasn't Nichol's return but another couple being led to a table on the far side of the room. The woman had short dark hair and her date was a local celebrity who Duo recognized from the papers. That guy had his hair long too, but unbraided. Which wasn't fashionable, unless you were already a celebrity.

They were chattering indiscernably, when he noticed Sally... no, _Nichol_ returning. The blouse he wore wasn't quite tucked into the skirt quite right and bulges of fabric were around his hips. He had water stains on his shirt that Duo could see even in the dark. He smiled. Nichol really had no sense of delicacy. Nichol smiled back.

Except that the other woman had stood up in her seat, and crossing the room faster than any woman in heals should, had wrangled Nichol back out of the room.

Duo took the napkin out of his lap and followed.

***

Nichol had given up on the clothes and was uncomfortably wet where the shirt stuck to his stomach. He briefly noticed that they didn't have the room to themselves, but Duo's Cheshire grin had been contagious. It felt good to spend time with the other man, even if they'd promised to keep in touch Nichol had always wanted more.

"Come with me." A dark-haired woman with intense eyes appeared directly in front of Nichol and moved him out of the dining room.

"Excuse me?" Nichol asked, finding himself back at the door for the women's restroom. His, now, least favorite place in the entire world.

"My husband is here," she whispered close to his ear.

"You're _husband_?" Nichol failed to see any relevance. He stared at Sally's body in the mirror and winced. That expression seemed horribly wrong on Sally's face and he tried to calm himself with a few breaths.

"I'm sorry, I should have told you," the strange woman put her arms around Nichol and made soothing noises. "I can tell this is upsetting you. But I promise, I meant everything I said to you that night."

"What?" Nichol flinched away, He wasn't sure if he should look at the woman in the mirror or face her directly. Talking in the bathroom wasn't one of his strongest pastimes.

"You have a family too," the woman said, somewhat desperately trying to touch Nichol's body. "I thought you would understand. I was going to explain. Is that him at the table? Your ex?"

_Sally dates women?_ Nichol collected his thoughts. _And she explains her circumstances to someone who lied to Sally?_ Anger gripped his throat a few seconds longer before he could speak, "I don't think this relationship was meant to be. You lied to her... me."

The woman blinked away Nichol's mistake. "If that's how you feel."

"I do," Nichol insisted. He thought of Sally then wondered how she would have handled the situation. "Maybe you should get some counseling. If you can't fix things with... uh, _him_, then maybe we can talk again later."

The woman frowned, her dark brows pulling together over a troubled expression.

"Hey, don't cry," Nichol reached out to stroke the woman's shoulder. She stepped into Nichol's personal space and seemed to want a hug. Which he gave her. He closed his eyes, because looking at the mirror felt too much like voyeurism.

***

"Are you okay?" Duo held the bathroom door open, glancing between where the stranger walked back to her table and Nichol who followed more slowly.

Nichol pressed his lips together as if he'd tasted something unpleasant. "No, I'm not okay. I'm in the body of a chick."

Duo kept his distance, although he wanted very much to put his arm around those shoulders. Sally's shoulders? Or Nichol's? Either way, it didn't seem right. "No, why would you be okay?"

"I need to get out of these clothes," Nichol muttered. Duo tried not to imagine that... he didn't see Sally's body. He saw Nichol's. Or maybe he was thinking of panda bears. Where did they have spots again?

He rubbed his eyes. "Yeah, it's been a draining sort-of day."

***

The next day, Sally watched her body hover in the blasted open doorway of their lab. Sally herself had been unable to sleep. She'd sent the message that Nichol had recorded for her to the kids. It explained that she wasn't going to be able to see them for a while and she loved them and missed them very much.

Then she'd gone to drown her attention into studying the cause of the explosion.

Which was when Nichol had arrived with her body.

"Taking good care of me?" He asked, as if waiting for permission to come inside. Sally waved him over.

"I didn't realize you were left-handed," she said.

"It's different doing things your way too," he replied pulling a stool over. He seemed to take a moment to get used to the way her legs didn't reach the floor on the stool he'd chosen. He determined, "I think this one is mine."

Sally set down her notebook and kicked over the one she'd been sitting on, "Switch."

"Any idea what happened to us?" Nichol asked. "Can we be fixed? Put back?" Then he added, "Safely?"

"I don't know," she admitted. "I was having a hard enough time trying to explain to the kids that they might have two mommies. But now they have two dads." She rubbed her nose.

"Oh," Nichol said as if remembering something.

"What?"

The expression of absolute horror on her own face was almost comical. Sally laughed, "Come on. Tell me. I'll forgive you. It's not been easy navigating your body either." Then she watched her face turn purple. It had never done _that_ before. Nichol must have overwhelming embarrassment issues.

"It's not that simple," he started. "I ran into a woman yesterday. She knew you. Seems like the two of you were... _close_. But she thought I was you."

"Eh, that was probably Lucrezia, I think," Sally said. "I haven't dated many women lately."

"Sally," her own voice sounded strangled the way Nichol was using it. "That woman is married. She's having an affair with you."

Sally slipped from the stool, but Nichol's longer legs supported her before she fell to the floor. "Oh."

***

They worked on their problem in silence, except when Sally had to ask for something specific. Repeatedly. Waiting on Nichol to figure out what she was asking for was almost worse than getting it for herself.

"This one?" he asked.

"Yes. That's what I've been asking for all along." Sally impatiently waved her hand until Nichol put the device into her fingers.

Nichol glanced at the ceiling. "Have you collected any samples from the original stuff?"

"What?" Sally looked up from her bubbling red substance. "It all turned into vapor."

"Did you look up there?" He pointed to the lights.

"I've got a duplicate concoction right here, Nichol," Sally pointed at her sample. "Just be quiet until this gets to the right temperature and I'll add the electrical heat with these wires. We should be touching like we were before."

"I should be on the other side then," Nichol said. "I was here, you were..."

"Fine, okay," Sally let him around her. She didn't move enough and the narrow space had them pressing against each other rather intimately until Nichol got through. Sally shook her head, the physical connection was causing some disruptive reaction in Nichol's body.

"I'm sorry," Nichol said, as if understanding.

"What?" Sally said, anxious for the distraction.

"This wouldn't have happened if I'd recognized the negative reaction sooner." He was talking about the accident. "I'd been taking notes, but I guess my idea was wrong. I let it go too long."

"You're idea?" Sally repeated.

"It made me think of..." Nichol sighed. "It doesn't matter. It didn't match your experiment. What have you got?"

"The heat is ready. Hold my hand." Sally looked at her fingers inside the male hand she moved. She was more than ready to be done with this scientific snafu. "The blast should be enough to create the vapor. Then we'll both take a deep breath."

***

That's exactly what happened. That's exactly what they did.

***

Duo Maxwell answered the doorbell. He'd recently bought a house in a neighbor hood near his shop. At one time, he'd talked about renting a room to Nichol, until the other man had signed for an apartment downtown.

He found Sally Po on his doorstep.

"Nichol?" he asked quietly.

The blonde head nodded, "Can I stay here? Don't want the fellows getting the wrong idea if a woman says at my apartment."

"Sure." Duo stepped to the side. "That spare room is still open. I can drag a mattress in there."

***

Sally didn't leave the lab. She'd promised Nichol not to overdue it with his body, but her mind couldn't switch off. She found a pillow in the closet and lay out on the cot. Perhaps she could call in some of the other scientists to work on their chemical mix-up. She must have missed something. And even if she'd rather keep the terrible mistake private, science could learn a lot from the incident. She wondered if Nichol would understand that decision. But she needed someone who spoke her language to do the work with her. Someone who didn't slow her down. His body made her clumsy enough as it was.

His body liked to rest his his arms over his head, sprawled out and stretched. It made her feel exposed.

From the floor, her phone rang. The light guided her to the device and she recognized Lucrezia's number. A ruthless thought entertained her tired mind.

"Hello," she answered.

"W-who's this?" Lucrezia was surprised. Of course she wouldn't recognize Nichol's voice.

"Who's this? Why are you calling Sally?"

"Is she there? Tell her it's Luce. I didn't like how things ended last time."

"I'm sure she didn't like them either," Sally replied. She lay back on the pillow and put an arm over her forehead. She felt powerful. Her hand around the phone was larger, she felt a different sort of confidence. "Luce, you need to get your life together. Don't be dating women if you're married. It's not fair to them."

"Who are you?" Luce asked again.

"Someone who understands. You've got to make those decisions before you can see other people. Just, think about that." Sally disconnected the call. She let the phone slip back onto the jacket on the floor.

Eventually, she fell asleep.

***

"Stop," Duo commanded the female body walking into the kitchen. "Go back. More clothing. More clothing." He covered his eyes.

Sally's voice laughed. "I never got this sort of reaction out of you."

"Nicky, quit it. Or I'll know you did that on purpose. Get dressed." He kept one hand up to block the view of underwear and the skimpy, striped t-shirt that left nothing to the imagination. Duo concentrated on the sizzling bacon. Unsexy, unseductive bacon.

"Fine."

A few minutes later, Nichol returned wearing jeans and a hoodie over the shirt. "I'm surprisingly cold in this body." He demonstrated by rubbing his fingers along the jeans as he sat down at the table for two against the wall opposite the stove. "Poor circulation."

Duo piled a breakfast sandwich together on a plate and set it in front of his friend. Then he spun around to make one for himself.

"I can eat this?" Nichol whimpered. "I'm pretty sure she said Vegan..."

"Fake bacon, vegan cheese. Thought you might need something that looked familiar anyway." Duo avoided looking at Nichol when he saw the blissful expression on Sally's face.

"You're way too good to me," Nichol said sloppily, already chewing his meal.

Duo moved around the kitchen, poured coffee and set that in a mug before Nichol. He only sloshed a little from the tremble in his hands.

"Sort of reminds me of Saturdays, you know, before..." Nichol was still eating. His words muffled between sips and bites. Duo didn't have to look to know. It was very familiar, and not quite forgotten. But the wrong body was sitting at the table and that was the problem.

"Yeah," Duo said, trying to sound cheerful. "Too bad. I mean, that room never came to much after you turned it down."

"Ha ha," Nichol fake laughed. "I know I wasn't welcome. I get that. I just wish... but if you're not interested in guys, you're not interested in guys."

_Not interested in guys_, Duo swallowed that thought too. Eventually he would have to turn around. Eventually, he would have to sit at his seat and look up and see _Sally Po_'s body. Which was, he realized, the actual disappointment.

***

Nichol found Sally in the lab again. This time with another woman in a lab coat. The second woman had dark brown hair pulled back into a bun and round glasses perched on her nose. She was saying, "I see that, but are you quite certain the chemicals were both introduced when the color changed to amber?"

"This is Sally Po," Sally said standing up and walking over to Nichol. "I was having a hard time explaining to her."

"Seems like most scientists don't listen," Nichol hissed back.

"That's not fair," Sally retorted quietly.

"You don't listen to any of my ideas."

"Because you don't know what you're talking about," she grumbled.

Nichol tried to cross his arms, but fumbled uncertain what to do about Sally's cleavage in the way. Sally snorted a laugh.

"She thinks I'm you, and since she doesn't know either of us... I told her that _you're_ the tech, Miss Po," Sally instructed.

"Fine," Nichol sighed, running his fingers through the longer hair. Duo had refused to braid it, being strangely uncooperative in helping Nichol get ready and making excuses that Nichol could survive until he got switched back and how soon would that be, quick?

Sally noticed the movement and whispered, "I'll help you fix it later. Just this for now." She took a spare hair band from her own lab coat which Nichol was wearing and fixed the hair into a manageable tail.

"Nice to meet you, Sally." the woman glanced between them. "I didn't realize..."

"We're not like that," Nichol squeaked. "I'm just... uh, scatterbrained. What would I do without... _Nichol_ to remind me of the protocol?"

"My name is Christine Une," she introduced herself. "I understand we're recreating the experiment from before in order to duplicate the results or prove them false."

"Whatever she, I mean, whatever he said," Nichol's ears burned red and without Sally's hair to hide them he knew his reaction was visible to anyone who would look.

"I've heard Nichol's assessment of the situation," Une indicated the new concoction bubbling on over the counter. "What do you have to add?"

Nichol glanced at Sally, then with a moment of defiance spoke up, "I'm not sure that we can recreate it. That... the results were special. So I wanted to see if we could duplicate some of the residue from the first stuff."

Une raised her eyebrow, "Duplicate the first stuff?"

"From the first stuff," Nichol realized he must sound impossibly incompetent.

"It's alright, uh, Sally." Sally jumped in to rescue Nichol from Une's stare. "With Une's help we can recreate the formula from what we know of the original."

Une's eyes glanced between them and for a long, sweaty moment (Nichol was going to have to power wash all Sally's clothing he'd borrowed) he was certain that Une suspected or completely discerned their displaced souls. Her comment surprised him so much that all he could say was, "What?"

"I said," Une repeated. "That's not a bad idea, Sally."

"The whole place was scrubbed down after the insurance inspectors came through," Sally reasoned. "I don't see how we could even get a sample. Besides, the residue would be post-incident. How can you recreate it from the end result?"

"Nichol," Une interrupted. "What you're saying might be on the mark, but this is science. When something fails, sometimes we need to think outside of our original intention, our original goals, to find the new answer we're looking for. Sally's idea is worth exploring."

Nichol could have kissed her. But that would have been with Sally's body, and with the way Une was smiling so kindly he probably could have gotten away with it even then.

***

Wes Walker answered his phone. "Sally?" he said hopefully, having noticed the number dialing in.

"It's me!" Sally's voice replied. "Really, me. In my own body, me."

"How? What?" Wes grinned. "I don't even care. Let me call the kids over to hear your voice."

***

"So we did find some minute traces in the light fixtures which the cleaners had completely overlooked. Like I had guessed," Nichol rambled barely touching the one beer he'd ordered. He kept staring at his own hands as if he might hug them to his once again very manly chest. Eventually, he did scrape his knuckles against the stubble on his chin and smiled in a relaxed manner. "It's funny how life seemed so... humdrum before. Now, it's... like a gift. Except I'm starting to sound like a girl." He laughed.

Duo finished his third and set it to the side of their booth. The woman brought another and made a point to lean far over the counter to hand it to him.

Nichol stared. "To think I had a set of those for three days? Four? I can't remember. It's just... so good to be sitting with you having a drink again. Like this." Nichol froze, suddenly wary. "That is okay, right?"

"Yeah, more than," Duo smiled. But the lines around his eyes told a different story. Nichol drank from his beer than and kept more quiet. The silences between them more pronounced.

***

Nichol went to work, uncertain if he still had a job or not. They'd had more meetings with the insurance explaining that while they were back in their original bodies that the swap had happened. Both he and Sally were required to fill out comprehensive reports and Nichol all but dismayed of seeing any financial compensation for the situation. _Typical risk of the job_ being a new, common phrase both HR and the insurance were tossing around with some regularity.

"Hi, Nichol," Sally said from where she leaned against a counter in their lab. She was in her white coat, but obviously was doing nothing.

"Good to see you," Nichol said. "Looking like you."

"Likewise," Sally smiled. "How's Duo?"

Nichol grimaced, "Awkward. He's a good friend, but before this... we really hadn't been spending much time together."

"I broke up with Lucrezia," Sally confided. "I think I have you to thank for that."

"Awkward," Nichol rubbed the back of his neck. "It was awkward. She was... not you. I mean."

"I bet, but you took the news for me. It was just a lot to take in... and you gave me time to think about it before I had to react," Sally looked straight ahead. "I think Duo likes you."

Nichol suddenly felt a chill as if his mind remembered Sally's poor circulation.

"Breathe, Nicky," Sally reached out and gripped his shoulder. "I don't have evidence, like you would want. But something... when I woke up, he bent over and kissed me. And even if he was trying to find you in that body of yours. Who does that?"

"That sounds like him," Nichol shrugged off the brief hope. "He's flirty." _Except when he isn't._ Nichol's second though came quickly behind the first.

"You paused," Sally noticed. "Something happened didn't it? You noticed too. It's that intuition thing."

"Well, if intuition means anything... then Christine Une had a flame for Sally Po." Nichol tried to change the subject with a light-hearted twist.

"Oh, about that," Sally smirked. "I'm sorry that I used you a little, but I asked her out."

"What?" Nichol laughed, "Who does she think she's going out with? You or me?"

"Do you care?" Sally prodded.

"No," Nichol retorted. "She's not my type."

"Good," Sally seemed set. "I'll tell her the whole truth over dinner."

Nichol turned to lean next to Sally and bumped her shoulder with his. "I would love to hear _that_ conversation."

"Oh good. Because the reservations for four. Bring Duo, and dress up nice."


End file.
